Creation of a coastal data hub for the Caribbean

Tide gauge installations in the Caribbean region are generating significant amounts of sea level data that would benefit local communities, businesses, coastal engineers, decision makers if they were processed and easily available. Currently, much of the data is only available in real time for tsunami warning via the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), and is not being used for other purposes (e.g. to make climatological data sets, or model validation) owing to difficulties processing the data (as manual processing of tide gauge data is time consuming and subjective, with quality control often based on visual scanning of the data).

To help overcome these difficulties in data processing, this project developed and tested an automated quality control system (downloadable here)  that facilitates automatic quality control processing of tide gauge data. It also established an open access web portal within the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level website that provides a catalogue of active and inactive tide gauges within the Caribbean (along with an indication of the length of sea level information available from that location), enables users to download the new automatic quality control code to process data from those locations, and provides a visualisation of the projected rise in sea levels under different IPCC global warming scenarios over the rest of the century for St Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada and St Lucia.

Outputs

• Development of an automated quality control system that enables users to extract tide gauge data in order to assess changes in daily mean heights, monthly means, and for storm surge analysis.
• Creation of an open access web portal that provides a catalogue of active and inactive tide gauges within the Caribbean, enables users to download and process data from those locations, and provides a visualisation of the projected rise in sea levels under different IPCC global warming scenarios for St Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada and St Lucia.

Publications

• Development of an Automatic Tide Gauge Processing System. J. Williams, A. Matthews and S. Jevrejeva (2019). NOC R&C Report #64.
• Development of a coastal data hub for Stakeholder access in the Caribbean Region. S. Jevrejeva, A. Matthews and J. Williams (2019). NOC R&C Report #67.